Kids and Cows

 

These postcards would probably be considered "stock" cards. The actual location is not identified on the postcard, and the images are generic enough that they could be sold almost anywhere. I bought these for my collection because I have a soft spot for cute pictures of kids and animals, and I like postcards that show people in what is now vintage clothing.

The captions on stock cards are often fanciful and/or inaccurate. The picture of the girl is titled "A proud 4-H Girl raised her own whiteface on father's farm." I suppose she could be a real farm girl who helped raise the animal, but she looks too young to me to belong to 4-H or raise the animal by herself. The postcard of the boy has the rather obvious title "Feeding the Calves." I would estimate that the first postcard is from the 1960s and the second from the 1950s.

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Native American Jewelry

Native Americans of the Southwest United States are famous for their jewelry, especially that made with silver and/or turquoise.

The postcard above (ca. 1932) shows a little Navajo girl and is titled "The Silversmith's Daughter." According to the description on the back of the card, her beautiful Indian jewelry made of coin silver and genuine turquoise stone has been lavished upon her by her silversmith father.

The postcards below are somewhat newer (ca. 1958-63). The first shows an Indian silversmith at work using primitive tools to make jewelry of coin silver and turquoise. The silver is heated and then hammered to suit his purpose. 

Many examples of genuine Indian handmade jewelry are shown on the last two postcards.

The video below is long, but it is well-worth watching. It shows and describes the different styles of Native American silver jewelry that are associated with different tribes and gives a brief history of the jewelry.

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American Red Cross WWII Railway Station Canteens

The American Red Cross canteens provided services to members of the military during both WWI and WWII. Many of the canteens were in railway stations to serve the soldiers and sailors on the troop trains passing through.

These two postcards show the Red Cross canteens at the two Minneapolis, Minnesota railway stations during WWII. The postcards were furnished through the courtesy of the Minneapolis-Moline Power Implement Company.

Minneapolis no longer has any railway stations. The Milwaukee Road Station was closed in 1971. At its peak, the station served 29 trains per day. It was not demolished, but it was vacant for many years. Finally, a project to reuse the buildings was begun in 1998 and completed in 2001. The Great Northern Station was demolished in 1978. Passenger train service had declined from a peak of 125 daily trains during World War II to just one route when Amtrak began operation in 1971.

The video below is about the WWII Aberdeen (South Dakota) Railway Station Red Cross Canteen. (Aberdeen is about 275 miles west of Minneapolis).

A couple of my previous posts also dealt with WWII Canteens:

WWII Canteen, North Platte, Nebraska

Chicago Union Station During World War II

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Architecture of Belarus on Stamps

click to enlarge

This postcard commemorates 20 years of  Belarusian stamps. Belarus used the postage stamps of the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1991. In 1991 Belarus became an independent nation and began its own postal administration in 1992. (Wikipedia)

Belpost has a very nice website in English, and I think you can find information on all their stamps there. Stamps are listed both chronologically and thematically. Architecture is the theme of the stamps on this postcard. The architecture stamps are on a page called Architectural Monuments. I didn't try to identify all of these stamps, but I did look up the two souvenir sheets in the center of the postcard: Mir Castle (2010) and Orthodox Churches (2012).

This is a post for Sunday Stamps at Viridian's Postcard Blog

Orville Ewing -- Artist From The Old West

 

Orville Ewing billed himself as an "artist from the Old West". He traveled the United States with his covered wagon/trailer and menagerie for about 30 years starting in 1938. He sold many different postcards of himself over the years. These are from the 1950s. I have five different postcards of him, and I know there are a lot more. The text on the front of the first card was used on many of his postcards, and there seems to be very little other information about him available.

Have traveled from the Atlantic to Pacific Coasts and from Canada to Mexico — at San Francisco World's Fair in 1939, and at the New York World's Fair in 1940. — I gave up oil painting becasus the paint affected my health, and started pencil sketching in 1938.

The first two postcards were published by Curt Teich in 1954 and 1955 (Curt Teich  printed date codes on their postcards). The third postcard states on the back that the photograph on the card shows Mr. Ewing at the time he visited Jacksonville, Florida, in 1957.

I found one newspaper article about Orville Ewing online. It was written in 1977 by someone who had seen Ewing in 1938. At first Ewing was using oxen to pull his wagon. His early menagerie consisted of  two dogs, several goats, a cat, a rooster, and a hen. Later photos on postcards show donkeys pulling the wagon, and usually have at least one goat and a dog visible.

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I have been busy this week designing some new T-shirts for my Postcardy Zazzle Store and have moved my Zazzle blog panel to the top of the left column. I was surprised to see that my store also shows up on the Zazzle UK website. Check it out!

Face on the Barroom Floor (Painting)

The Face on the Barroom Floor (painting) is a painting on the floor of the Teller House Bar in Central City, Colorado. It was painted in 1936 by Herndon Davis, who had been commissioned to do a series of paintings for the Central City Opera House. He was also asked to do some work at the Teller House. However, Davis was forced to quit after a dispute with the project director.

Davis painted the face on the floor before leaving. The face is is believed to be that of his wife. The title and possibly the painting was inspired by the famous poem Face on the Barroom Floor (poem) by Hugh Antoine d'Arcy. The poem is about an artist who became a vagabond drunk after losing Madeline, the woman he loved, to another man. The artist tells his story to a bartender and the barroom crowd, and he offers to sketch Madeline's face on the barroom floor. He ends up falling dead in the middle of his work.

The poem was recorded by country music stars Tex Ritter for his 1959 Blood on the Saddle album and Hank Snow on his Tales of the Yukon album (1968).  The video below used the recording by Hank Snow.

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Ellis Island -- U. S. Immigration Station

 

Ellis Island was was the gateway for millions of immigrants to the United States and was the country's busiest immigrant inspection station from 1892 until 1954. The peak year for immigration at Ellis Island was 1907. An Immigration Act was passed in 1924 that greatly restricted immigration and allowed processing at overseas embassies. After 1924, Ellis Island became primarily a detention and deportation processing station for displaced persons or war refugees

The postcards above are from "An Educational Series of Postcards." I chose these two cards for this post because of the Sepia Saturday prompt photo of children playing. The postcard series includes both exteriors of the buildings and interiors showing what the immigrants encountered there. You can see the rest of the series on my website here.

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